Concorde Hunt

Please note that some or all of the objects mentioned in this post are no longer visible on Google Earth or Google Maps.

Researching my recent Le Bourget Airport post I discovered a couple of Concordes on display and, seeing as there were only ever 20 of them built, I decided to see how many I could find on Google Maps.

Le Brouget houses the remains Aircraft 203 which disastrously crashed in July 2000 and Aircraft 211 which was scrapped for parts. Also in one of the hangers is the very first Concorde (001). The outside display features Aircraft 213 however the satellite photos are out of date so the Concorde cannot be seen.

Concorde 102 was the fourth plane built and the last of the preproduction aircraft. It has been on display at Orly Airport since the 1970s and replaced a full-size wooden replica Concorde that had been lost to a fire.

Outside the Aerospatiale HQ at Toulouse Airport (near where the Airbus 380s are assembled) is Concorde 201, the first “production” Concorde although this plane never went into service.

Also at Toulouse to the north is Concorde 209 which was the last of Air France’s Concordes to fly. After the disaster in 2000 the plane was stranded in JFK airport for three months while its safety was assessed so I’m pretty sure that the previously posted satellite photo of a Concorde in JFK is also Concorde 209 (although due to image updates it’s no longer visible on Google Maps or Google Earth).

So I only managed to find 3 Concordes (one of them twice), the rest are either in parts of the globe where resolution is too poor to see them or they are stored indoors, for a full list of their locations see the Fleet overview.

That is pretty cool. Too bad the concordes didn’t last that long. I mean they were pretty damn expensive – it would be cheaper to go on a regular flight and arrive a few hours later – and makes you wonder how much it would cost now. Hopefully we will be able to find a new way to power aircraft in the future to recommision these things.

No need to power them a different way, just go longer distances so the time savings are greater. Japan’s always made it nearly economic to build supersonic airliners; now that the whole of East Asia is picking up economically it’s just a matter of time until someone does it.

incidentally at the duxford air museum, next to my house, that big semi circular building just before the blur is the American Aviation museum, and there are some pretty cool planes in theie, including an Lockheed sr71 blackbird, an a10 tankbuster and a, Ikid you not, B52 bomber, hanging from the ceiling. Awesome display.

Let’s not forget #205 which Air France gave to the Smithsonian Institution after they retired the line. (James, I know you looked, I’m just telling them.) It is currently in the Udvar-Havy Center, a branch of the National Air and Space Museum, seen here in construction. (http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/) Unfortunately, the pictures are so outdated that the Concorde hadn’t even been flown to Washington-Dulles Airport, just to the north. So, we can’t see it.

I’ve finally posted my Concorde Compendium which provides a Google Earth datafile giving details of all 20 Concordes. The data includes links to the museums which house them now. The webpage version of this data additionally provides a Google Map link for each aircraft.

It may not be on Google Maps – but if you take a look at Heathrow Airport in Google Earth, you can see one of the Concorde’s in it’s permanent spot alongside the taxiway towards the east end of the airport.

that Manchester link is not of Manchester airport, that’s woodford airport, i know because i live in the next town called poynton.
/ Google Earth
my house is at the top right of that picture zoomed out from that link.

i don’t remember much about it, and there’s not much on the internet, but i think they built Lancaster bombers there, and its now used as more of a private runway for small plane owners and for testing planes.

Manchester does have a concord, and last time i was there it was parked along side some others i heard they are going to open an exhibition of them.

I think that Manchester link is Woodford Aerodrome, Manchester Airport is a few miles west of there. I know someone who worked at British Aerospace in woodford so I guess it’s something to do with that.

Can someone please help settle what I believe is a hoax. I have been advised by a regular ‘know-it-all’ that one of the Concorde aircraft was scrapped because a ‘mechanic’ (??) allegedly put the ‘wrong’ hydraulic fluid into its hydraulic system.

Has anyone heard this ‘story’ and is it just that, ie a storybook ‘tale’?

Only one airframe was scrapped before the program retirement. Aircraft 211 was scrapped when it became unnecessary after Air France cancelled the Paris-Dakar-Rio route. 211 was chosen due to weight limitations from repairs after a hard landing in Dakar. 211 parts were used to bring 214 back to service after moisture contamination in the hydraulic fluid grounded it for a year. That is probably where this “story” came from.

We cannot allow BA to trash Concorde, there is only one group in the UK who are totally focussed on returning a single Concorde to flightâ€¦â€¦ http:///www.save-concorde.co.uk join the fight to save a â€ BRITISHâ€ Concorde before itâ€™s too late !!

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